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A little over two months have passed since I introduced the Invest in Santa Barbara 2012 proposal to the voters for their consideration. Since then, there have been many media stories about these initiatives, and there’s definitely a community conversation happening all over the city. Whether it be through town hall meetings, walking around downtown, talking to people at the Farmers Market, or meeting with organizations, Santa Barbarans are debating and discussing the role of city government, how services should be funded, and who should pay for them.

The conversation is not just about some abstract ideas. There are actual petitions out today and city voters are diligently signing them to qualify these initiatives for the November ballot. The Invest in Santa Barbara proposal focuses on real-world challenges we currently face, and because of state law, only you, the voters, can decide whether or not to enact it.

Since the 2008 recession, the City Council has passed a balanced budget every year. But let’s be realistic here – budgets from the last four years reflect a dramatic cut in city services and the budget certainly does not reflect the services demanded and expected by city residents, business owners, and visitors.

I know homelessness has increased downtown, on lower Milpas Street and on the Waterfront area. I know people are concerned about gang violence. I know the number of burglaries and robberies has risen. People want an increase in police services in patrol cars, on bicycles, and on foot throughout the city. People want restored library services, better graffiti abatement, well-maintained parks, and improved street maintenance. I know these things because I hear from you every day.

City staff do a stellar job with the resources they have available; however with the recent reduction of over 100 full-time equivalent positions, there’s a limit to what they can accomplish. I appreciate the criticism expressed by people about tax or fee increases. However, if we want additional services, and I believe that we do, then we have to find a new source of revenue allowed by State law to pay for them.

Of course, it’s not just about revenue. I have watched with increasing alarm the budget impacts associated with public employee pensions’ costs. For every $1 spent on public safety salary, the City must contribute an additional 45 cents towards the Public Employee Retirement System. This amount will increase in Fiscal Year 2014. The Invest in Santa Barbara proposal is a modest change we can make today, which will hopefully head off a more draconian assault on the system in the near future. The initiative simply says that all city employees must pay their own employee-share of their own guaranteed retirement. I continue to have constructive dialogue with our city employee union associations, and appreciate their recognition of the importance of dealing with this issue in a responsible manner. To date, no city union association has come out in opposition to the Invest in Santa Barbara proposal.

Some individuals in the Democratic Party establishment have criticized this proposal because the issue of pensions has become their untouchable third-rail of statewide politics. The state legislature has refused to even discuss our own Democratic Governor’s pension reform plan. Pension reform must be discussed in real-world terms by responsible, fair people who respect public employee pensions and believe that some modest changes to the current system will ensure its long-term political and fiscal strength.

Finally, on the Entertainment District fee, I think most Santa Barbarans agree that alcohol sales have a higher societal cost than other retailers and should pay a more proportional share towards public safety services.

While doing nothing is an option, Santa Barbara can do better than the zero-sum rhetoric found in state and national debates which reward the status quo. I am asking voters to put aside their ideological doctrine and focus on dealing with the challenges facing our community. Please take your time. Study the policies (for complete details: investinsantabarbara2012.com). Put aside the politics and the personalities. Ask yourself, “Would Santa Barbara be better off if the voters approved these proposals and invested in Santa Barbara?” If the answer is yes, then sign the petitions. If the answer is no, then please, tell me your alternatives. My door is open.

How about a no public camping/sleeping policy? I go downtown and along the waterfront and people are sleeping day and night next to buildings and trees, some young some old, some smelly, others not. How is it that if i want to camp, i have to drive 30 minutes and pay near $30, yet these people can camp at the beach whenever they want with no repercussions? We have time and money for herds of police to have crosswalk stings and dui checkpoints, yet no one can tell someone to move along if they are taking advantage of our benches and parks? One man this weekend asked me for money so he "didn't have to steal". That made me feel wonderful after having some items stolen from my car in my driveway, yet having the police tell me they couldn't do anything about it because my doors were unlocked. The sooner people are willing to go out and spend money in SB, the better it will be for our local economy.

I would agree with the entertainment district tax but a simple all around city-wide booze tax could solve a lot more problems, maybe all. If we give the conservatives more tax revenue they'll probably just waste it on gang injunctions.

Mayor Schneider could have proposed a few options to the "establishment" in town hall meetings with facts, figures and options before announcing her strategy. Would a 50-cent-a- bottle be feasible and would it not only provide all the police we want but fix every sidewalk. We don't know because we haven't seen the figures. Would 75-cent-a-bottle do it?

And I still don't see why we should capitulate to the conservative side of our "establishment" and penalize our Fire and Police department employees although I guess the FD and PD could just simply negotiate for higher-wages to compensate for the proposed new $8k a year tax. And minimum wage earners (the poor) will be stuck with the increase in sales tax.

Instead of taxing firefighters and police I would have much more enthusiasm if we were to figure out a way to tax real estate commissions that the pitiful Frank Hotchkisses' industry pockets rather than waiting for trickle-down and non-profit theories.

Or re-establish prop 13 tax increases for single family residential profiteer property owners such as the tax payer subsidized rental that Dale Francisco lives in.

Or tax the fine cuisine and cocktails over at Randy Rowses place so that the chamber of commerce non-living wage service industry can subsidize their own affordable housing requirements. Perhaps a leisurely yacht club members cocktail tax could help.

I'd much rather hear a few options before I sign anything. Increasing density with tax paying property owners and with some iron-clad smart growth policies in place could be an option, a good old conservative option. And yes we do need traffic calming around here.

The pension reform plan is fair. Employees can pay at least a third of their pension contributions like other public servants do.

The restaurant/bar tax is fuzzy. Some bars are more rowdy than others. Which bars really are responsible for the problem drunks?

The sales tax increase is regressive and unfair for low income workers. Just because other cities have made that mistake doesn't mean Santa Barbara should.

The city could eliminate the housing rehabilitation loan program. I'm not sure if it still exists but it cost the city nearly half a million dollars last year.

The Santa Barbara area has a glut of affordablet housing. We don't need to subsidize developers anymore. If the housing development and preservation program still exists it could be cut and save the City around a million dollars per year.

Also the City doesn't need to fund the Santa Barbara conference and visitor’s bureau or the chamber of commerce visitors’ information center.

I agree with the mayor that major budget problems exist in our future if we don't plan today. I'm hoping for some better ideas. There doesn't appear to be a simple solution. Tax the seagulls?

The city of SB has a structural spending problem that they can not tax their way out of..From 2005 to 2009 were the boom times and general fund revenue increased significantly from $84M to $101M yet they had significant operating deficents each year of upto $7M. The general fund revenue is increasing nicely from $101M in 2011 to $103M in 2012. Not nearly enough to cover increased pension and salary cost. In 2012 pension cost alone are $15M and will increase to $20M by 2014. Most business suffered 20% plus decrease in revenue and had to figure out how to maintain service levels at reduce revenue. Not so the City or government in general.The City is comparatively in great shape, they need to improve effiencies by lower their cost - less people, lower salaries and more efficient processes. Not more taxes.The good news is housing cost in SB is much lower than 2008 so employees should now be able to buy homes and work here.

The mayor is so wrong, because the ways to fix our problems here are to propose alternate funding plans and illegal actions that the city has no control over and that will never happen no matter what. That is the real path to fiscal progress.

Obfuscation, distraction, and confusion about an army of straw men will be the winning argument.

the mayor has taken the easy way out by selectively targeting certain groups (bar owners, public safety officers) to help garner public opinion at a time of unparalleled and irrational anti-public employee hysteria - bypassing the more challenging but democratic processes of public policy making and negotiation as part of an elected body. The ballot box is a dangerous place to make informed public policy decisions-- just ask gays who want to marry, or schools that would like to utilize race or ethnicity in larger analysis of admissions decisions, --when "social issues" (including labor, and alcohol sales)--and not candidates- are put to the vote, rational discourse goes out the window. So many compromises were made in closed session negotiations to achieve current benefits--but the voters will never hear of that. Sausage making at its worst.

@Whosecityisthis2012,Saying the mayor is taking the easy way out by "targeting bars" ect is like saying the allies took the easy way out by targeting Hitler.Which businesses do you think are responsible for irrational, aggressive behavior on the part of it's patrons? I'm sure if we ran tests on all the bodily waste publicly expunged in this district we wouldn't find coffee, cotton or ceramics. I suppose all the people arrested this weekend alone leaving the downtown area had music in their bloodstream instead of alcohol..There's a reason people who drive cars pay a license fee that people who don't drive don't pay.